Transit to community: Show us the way

STOCKTON - Transportation officials think for the first time in years there is more money to spend on transit, ending a succession of cuts that have eroded bus service in and around Stockton.

Zachary K. Johnson

STOCKTON - Transportation officials think for the first time in years there is more money to spend on transit, ending a succession of cuts that have eroded bus service in and around Stockton.

Improvements won't likely be seen until January, but until then, the San Joaquin Regional Transit District is asking customers and would-be riders where the bus should go, taking surveys on buses, shopping centers and online.

Year after year, the district has had to scale back services as state, local and federal revenue declined, but RTD officials are optimistic that those days could be over.

"We've been cutting, cutting and cutting. Now it looks like the money is going to be flowing again," said Gary Giovanetti, chairman of RTD's Board of Directors.

The already grim financial picture looked worse earlier this year when a dispute over California's new pension-reform law threatened to halt billions of dollars in federal transportation grants to RTD and transit districts across the state. This month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law to free up the money by temporarily exempting transit workers from the new pension rules. Then the state sued the U.S. Department of Labor, the agency that held funding based on federal law to protect collective bargaining rights.

Preparing for the worst, RTD geared up to cut about a third of the bus service in Stockton but ultimately put in milder service cuts in August.

The lead-up to the cuts included holding a series of hearings to get input from the public. In recent years, these kinds of hearings had become the familiar precursor to cuts that saw bus services beginning later in the day, stopping earlier in the evening and, in parts of Stockton, disappearing altogether.

Now the district is reaching out to the public again, but this time it's to build back up, officials said.

Change could increase frequency on existing routes, or have bus routes running longer hours. It could also open up more parts of the city to bus service.

Changes won't necessarily replace specific service that was cut. Those reductions happened after analysis of ridership showed which services were not widely used, said Donna DeMartino, RTD's general manager and CEO.

"I would say the slate is clean," De Martino said.

So far, response to the survey has been greater than anticipated, with officials hearing from about 800 people by Monday. Clipboard-wielding staffers have been at transit hubs in Stockton, and managers are riding the buses this week to talk to passengers. Riders and non-riders alike can fill out the survey on the agency's website through the end of the month, officials said.

RTD's different bus services crisscross Stockton. The district also includes intercity buses in the county and commuter buses that go outside San Joaquin County.

From 2010 to this year, the number of trips on all RTD buses fell only slightly, from 4.4 million to 4.3 million, according to RTD. It reflects how the district has expanded its Metro Express route, which consists of three popular routes that form a long x and y axis of service with frequent buses in Stockton. Riders per year on the express routes rose from 726,000 to nearly 1.9 million over the past three years.

At the same time, riders on the standard Stockton Metro routes following less-traveled corridors saw the number of riders drop from 2.9 million to 1.7 million as routes were shaved down.

The economic downturn hurt the district, and input from the public is important when determining how best to use any increase in revenue, DeMartino said.